To Prime or Not to Prime?

Whether to prime or not is a topic that comes up frequently on the job site. Obviously, if you are a paint contractor who has bid a job "turnkey", with a flat price that includes labor AND materials, you're going to want to complete that job as quickly and with as few materials and steps as possible. But if you bid the job "time + materials", you're not as concerned with your time or the cost of the materials. As the CUSTOMER, however, you are motivated by both quality AND cost--naturally you want the highest quality at the lowest costs. Obviously when those two competing interest meet, disagreements can occur.

Some painters would contend that it is only necessary to prime NEW wood--or to prime over strong colors or stains that would be more likely to bleed through the paint (say, if you were painting white paint over orange paint). But on my job sites, we prime EVERYTHING--all the time. The reason for this is part "better safe than sorry" and part "do unto others as you would have them do unto you".

For starters, I guaranty my work for life--specifically, workmanship. If the paint fades or mildews or chalks up--that's not a workmanship issue. But if the paint doesn't stick or doesn't cover--that's on me, that's my bad, and that's my responsibility to cure. So, if I'm painting your house, I'm pressure washing it first, then--after appropriate drying time--I'm priming, then I'm caulking, then I'm painting. That's the procedure that I've found results in the best long term performance.

Aside from ensuring a good bond between the paint & whatever it is that you are painting, priming also brings out the surface imperfections that aren't always obvious if you don't prime... things like cracks, peeling paint, nails holes, etc.--are all accentuated by the primer--making it easier to get the prep right.

Priming, along with property caulking, extends the life of any organic (i.e. wood) materials on the exterior of your home. We are often called upon to remove & replace rotten trim, siding, windows--and even entry doors--that were not properly primed when they were originally installed, causing them to fail prematurely in the wet, humid Houston climate.

Priming also help get the color right. If you are painting a blue over a red color, if you don't prime the red, you might end up with a greenish hue in the topcoat--as the two colors mix together. So, you might end up having to put a 2nd or 3rd coat of paint on to compensate--so you might as well put a coat of primer underneath and save yourself a coat of paint and ensure a proper bond.

The pros know--but many consumers don't--that primers can be TINTED to get them closer to the color you are painting. If you are painting a light color, the primer can sometimes be tinted to almost the same color, again, saving you time and paint by eliminating one of the top coats. If you are painting a darker color the paint store will probably only tint the primer to about 50% of the intensity of your top coat--because too much pigment in the primer will reduce it's bonding efficacy. But even then, the top coat will cover much better if the primer is tinted to the same general color.

The type of primer you use will also very from project to project. New drywall (sheetrock) requires a special "PVA" primer that seals the mud and ensures a strong bond. If you don't properly seal new drywall the paint can peel off VERY easily. And when priming over certain colors or drywall (usually ceilings) that have been "stained" by water penetration or mildew, it's best to use a stain blocking primer like "Kilz" (Masterchem) or "Stain Jammer" (ICI-Dulux) or "2001 Stain Blocking Primer" (Zinzer).

So, whether you are tackling a paint project on your own or hiring a professional, make sure that the right primers are a part of the job!

"It's the Color, Stupid."

Most of us of a certain age remember the famous phrase, "It's the economy, stupid.", coined by Democratic spin-meister James Carville during the Clinton / Bush election of 1992. Since then it has been co-opted and bastardized repeatedly by myriad pundits & talking heads on both sides of the political spectrum, as well as Hollywood and Madison Avenue.

The point of this saying isn't to be offensive, but to simply reinforce the "keep it simple, stupid" concept. Don't put the cart before the horse. Put first things first.

In the case of interior or exterior house paint, COLOR is by far the most important thing to focus on UP FRONT. Think about it. You can have the most experienced painter and the most expensive, high quality caulks, primers, and paints... but if the COLOR is wrong--it's ALL wrong. To put it another way: a perfectly executed turd is still a turd.

A customer in Montrose recently hired us to paint two, beautiful, classic, turn-of-the century mansions, side by side, on historic Avondale street. The houses had tons of amazing Craftsman style detailing... brackets, porches, intricate cornice work, stringcourses, lap siding mixed with cedar shake in the gables--the works. And, strangely enough, the one stipulation that the customer wanted--"in writing"--was that we use "This Old House" paint, which--at the time--was available at one of my local vendors (http://www.icipaintstores.com/toh/index.html).

He knew nothing about paint (and he wanted BOTH houses repainted PLAIN WHITE from tip to toe), but he had seen an episode of This Old House on TV and that had convinced him to use their paint--which was one of the most expensive paint you could buy at the time.

So, three weeks of washing and scraping and priming and sanding and caulking and painting later, he had two enormous, vintage, 3-story, BORING, white houses. I was so bummed out about that project that I never even put one of our signs up out front: I didn't want anyone to know that we were the ones painting those beautiful old houses plain white. And every time I drive down that street and pass by those plain white houses, I can't help but thinking to myself... "It's the color, stupid." This guy just dropped $8,000 per house but added very little value in doing so. (To be fair, the houses were in dire need of painting of any kind. But with the right colors, spending almost the exact same amount, he could have easily added $20-25,000 in value to each house--if not more.)

Of course, those are his houses and if he wants to hire me to paint them purple or shocking pink I'll give him the best damn purple paint job I can do. But nothing can make--or break--a painting project faster than a poor color choice. (And white on white on white is almost always a poor color choice for the exterior of a vintage Craftsman house.)

Obviously, as a painter, I get asked frequently by my customers to either choose or suggest paint colors for them. I learned long ago to tactfully avoid that minefield. Suggest the wrong color--no matter how beautiful or period appropriate--and if the customer doesn't like it--it's your fault--and they are either going to expect you to repaint for free--or have bad feelings about the job--no matter how well it was executed.

So, instead of suggesting specific colors, I started teaching people to make the best color choices they can, own their own, using some basic trial & error processes I've developed over an 18 yr career. Because at the end of the day, it’s their house, their office, their bedroom, their bathroom, their life--so it needs to be THEIR color. They need to own it.

Of course, there are people out there who are excellent at picking colors. Clothes, fabric, house paint, graphics—some people just have a knack for combining colors well. In some cases it might be innate; in others it might be training. In my experience—even in the interior design & decorating fields—people who don’t struggle with color choices are few and far between.

And then there are those who THINK they are great at picking colors—when it’s actually just a boat load of self-confidence that they possess. So, they’ll pick colors quickly and boldly and confidently—and even if they look horrible they’ll never admit it—to themselves or anyone else. I run into a lot of interior decorators who suffer from this delusion. (Of course, interior decorators get paid well to be “bold” and over the top… so they tend toward that direction by necessity.) Designers and decorators get paid more when their customers spend more--so the more expensive the paint, the more colors, the more faux finishes, etc.--the more money they make. They don't have to live in the houses when they are done--or write the checks to the subs.

One of the biggest problems that anyone choosing colors is going to struggle with is that different LIGHT makes the same color look very different. The same paint chip is going to look dramatically different in daylight than it does under the fluorescent lights in the paint store or the incandescent lights of your living room or kitchen. So, it’s important to try to pick colors in the same type of light that the colors will ultimately be seen in.

If you are picking exterior colors, take the paint chips OUTSIDE--preferably right outside your house, and pick them in situ. If you are picking colors for your bathroom, take the paint chips INSIDE the bathroom and pick the colors in situ. If the room you are picking colors for has a lot of windows, you’re going to want to pick a color that looks good in both natural daylight and under whatever type of lights you use in that space at night.

“That’s a lot of freaking trouble!” you may be thinking to yourself…. And, you’re right, it is a lot of freaking trouble…. But if you don’t get the COLOR right—you’re sunk before you even leave the harbor. Do you really want to waste $500, $1,000 $5,000, $10,000, painting your home or business the wrong color? So, a few hours of effort up front is well worth the trouble, right?!

The main method I use when choosing paint colors is the “chip on the wall” method. I usually have a generally idea of the basic color scheme that I’m interested in. That might be because of the era of the house I’m working on, the style, type, or colors of the furniture or artwork that will be in the room, recent trends—or it might be as esoteric as just “a feeling”. So, from that, I take my handy ICI-Dulux color wheel and walk around the room or the house or the yard and I flip through the wheel and look for five or ten colors that I think might work.

If I know I want a blue, then I stick to blues. If I don’t have a specific color in mind yet, I might stick to an intensity range (light colors or dark colors or neutral colors, etc). Often just eliminating the colors that you know you DON'T want is the most important thing you can do.

Once I’ve got some chips I like, I take some scotch tape or some blue painters tape and I tape up the chips in the room or on the siding or the door or whatever it is that I’m picking a color for. (It’s best if the walls or door or trim or whatever I’m painting have been PRIMED, so that I’m not looking at color chips on top of other colors. If everything’s been primed (white) and prepped and ready for paint, then I can pick colors in a neutral setting.)

Now, say I’ve taped up 10 chips around the room in the daylight… and I’ve spaced them out a bit so they’re not crowding each other… and I kind of walk around the room and “eyeball” the chips a bit and see if any colors jump out out at me—not as the final color—but as colors that I definitely DON’T want. Because the “chip on the wall” method is simply a process of ELIMINATION. You start with five or ten chips and your goal is to end up with ONE. And that chip is your color.

This process takes time; you need to see the chips in the daylight and at night, under the fluorescent or incandescent lights in the room. You want to see the chips in the morning and in the evening. As the day and night go by you should be able to eliminate all of the chips but one or two. And when you do, you take that chip to the paint store and you buy a can of the cheapest paint they sell, mixed in that color. (Why buy a $30 can of Ralph Lauren paint just to pick a color?)

Home Depot has a line of paint—made by Glidden—called America’s Finest. Flat interior paint in that line costs about $8/gallon. (Yep, that's a gallon--not a quart.) So, pick up a gallon in the color you think you like—buy a cheap, disposable roller & roller cover & plastic roller tray—and go home and roll up a few splashes of that color on the wall.

Try it on a couple of different walls in a couple of different places. Put it on pretty thick or put on two coats. Then LIVE WITH IT for a day or two… again, you want to see the color during the daylight and the night lights.

If you love the color—go with it! If you don’t—try again. Maybe it’s another color from the original chips you tried—maybe it’s a completely different color—but if you repeat the methodology, I promise you will eventually find the “right” color for that project. And if you burn through a couple of $8 cans of paint to make sure you get the color right—it’s a small price to pay overall. (You can sometimes use the “wrong” colors as base coats for the “right” color if they are similar enough….)

And if you are dead set on using that fancy, consumer brand paint—like “This Old House” or “Ralph Lauren”—fine—you wait until you get the color right before you blow your budget on that expensive (and often inferior quality) paint. (I know one painter in Salt Lake City that won’t warranty his work if you spec out Ralph Lauren paint—even if you provide the paint!)

Don’t forget: It’s not brand that counts… it’s the COLOR, stupid! J